A television broadcast may be delivered from a broadcaster to a distributor and ultimately to a consumer. Accordingly, a broadcast system may entail a first transmission of the television broadcast from the source to an intermediary which may perform a second transmission of the television broadcast from the intermediary to the viewer. This broadcast system may enable alternate programming such that the distributor may insert programming segments in predetermined available slots within the television broadcast. For example, the distributor may perform the second transmission for a local area and may insert the programming segment in the available slot targeted at the audience of the local area.
The broadcaster may utilize an automated process to indicate to the distributor when in the television broadcast alternate programming may be substituted. Specifically, a digital signal, audible or inaudible cue tone or an avail tone may be inserted into the broadcast signal in the first transmission from the broadcaster to the distributor. Accordingly, when the distributor receives or identifies the inclusion of the avail tone, the distributor may, under its discretion, replace the available slot with a selected programming segment such that the local area corresponding to the distributor is provided the selected programming segment.
The broadcast system where the broadcaster inserts signaling such as avail tones includes feedback loops to verify several aspects of the television broadcast. Specifically, the feedback loop may be from a communication medium used in the first transmission. The aspects that may be checked using the feedback loops include a quality of the video and/or audio. Furthermore, the feedback loop may validate whether the avail tone has been embedded properly such as being properly translated and subsequently transmitted and received back. Although this feedback loop may indicate when a detected avail tone has been inserted and transmitted properly, there are inadvertent errors that may occur which are undetectable using conventional validation mechanisms.